The Mozart Anthology
Details
Music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791). Arranged and adapted for two pianos and piano, four hands by Greg Anderson (b. 1981). Advanced. 74 pages. Two copies required for performance of two piano works. Published by Awkward Fermata Press. Copyright: 2019
Appears on the album When Words Fade / Spotify / Apple Music and An Amadeus Affair / Spotify / Apple Music
The Mozart Anthology
“The Mozart Anthology” is a celebration of Mozart’s music, offering five arrangements, fantasies, and showpieces as performed by the Anderson & Roe Piano Duo. Each work translates the spirit of Mozart’s original vision to the keyboard in a highly pianistic manner, making attractive additions to any piano duo's recital repertoire.
The volume begins with the somber Chorale Prelude (“Der, welcher wandert diese Strasse voll Beschwerden”) from Die Zauberflöte, arranged for two pianos in homage to the chorale preludes of Bach-Busoni. By contrast, the "Papageno!” fantasy is essentially a game of musical twister for piano duet featuring a mash-up of Papageno’s felicitous arias (also from Die Zauberflöte).
Two works in this anthology originate from Mozart’s opera Così fan tutte. A pair of women bid a heartfelt farewell to their lovers departing by sea in the two-piano arrangement of “Soave sia il vento,” while the Grande Scherzo recasts the swirling, flirtatious events that close Act I as a four-movement sonata for piano, four-hands.
Rounding out the anthology is Anderson's irreverently off-the-wall and dizzyingly virtuosic “Ragtime alla Turca” for two pianos, based on Mozart’s Rondo “Alla turca,” K. 331.
All five works have been newly formatted and edited.
